Dyspeptic retired Marine wife/tech wench attempts to enlighten the great unwashed of the blogosphere while dodging snarky commentary from the local knavery.

March 31, 2010

Coffee Snorters, "Bombs Away!" Edition

The man who put the dude in prostidude has left the brothel business, but the Shady Lady Ranch vows to press on without him.

Though the Nye County bordello 150 miles northwest of Las Vegas has temporarily stopped servicing women, owner Bobbi Davis said she isn't ready to give up on her groundbreaking foray into legal male prostitution.

"We're just taking a little break," she said.

Markus, the Shady Lady's first stud for hire, called it quits a few weeks ago after drawing fewer than 10 customers. Since then, the workload has been shouldered by a Las Vegas man in his mid-30s who -- Davis swears she's not making this up -- performs under the name "Y. Not."

I am sure some of you insensitive knuckle draggers will try to say this is no big deal but so long as this kind of shameless gender inequality exists, men in this so-called "Land of the Free" cannot consider themselves truly liberated.

"I cannot say for sure" that DNCers haven't gone to strip clubs in an official capacity, Kaine said, but "you can be darn sure no one's going to write down the name of a strip club" on an FEC report without serious questions being asked.

You have to love Kaine's nimble rejoinder: "I can't say for certain that we haven't done exactly the same thing but what I can tell you is that if we did, there would be... err... questions!!!! Lots of questions:"

A good point of reference is the scandal that brought down Republican U.S. senatorial candidate Jack Ryan in 2004. Unlike the RNC scandal, that one actually involved a sex club. Unlike Steele, Ryan actually went to the club. Unlike the RNC staffers who partied at Voyeur, Ryan actually engaged in skeevy behavior while there. (His wife said he encouraged her to perform sex acts.) And, unlike anyone so far involved in the current scandal, Ryan was actually running for office.

Consider, too, all the bona fide sex scandals that have failed to get officials removed from office. A 1990 GQ profile of Sen. Edward Kennedy described him sexually assaulting a waitress and having sex with a congressional lobbyist on the floor of a private room at a D.C. restaurant. David Vitter remains a U.S. senator after his number showed up on the phone list of the "D.C. Madam." Sen. Larry Craig served out his term after getting caught soliciting sex in a Minneapolis airport bathroom.

The only way bondage-gate becomes a real scandal is if it turns out the RNC tried to cover up details. So far, it's fired the staffer responsible and promised donors it won't happen again. But a drip-drip of new information would turn the story from "RNC pays embarrassing nightclub tab" to "RNC lies about it." The latter is much worse. So short of video evidence that Steele himself was gyrating in a glass case, this scandal has no legs.

On the other hand, it's encouraging to know that our Congressional overlords up on Capitol Hill aren't hoarding the nation's supply of stupid.

Question: On March 22, 2010, millions of Americans are covered under the Medicare Part D Retiree Drug Subsidy Program. On March 23, 2030, President Barack Obama signs Obamacare into law. On March 24, 2010, millions of Americans find out they may end up losing their Medicare Part D Retiree Drug Subsidy Program benefits because Obamacare taxes the subsidy that enables companies to offer the benefit cost effectively. Do you think that those millions of Americans who are now staring at a loss of a meaningful benefit are going to...

"Let he who has never visited a high-end West Hollywood lesbian bondage-themed nightclub cast the first stone. OK, so that's probably a lot of you."

Of course, I'm terribly ignorant about these things. When they told me the BlackFive party in Vegas was going to be held at "the Penthouse Club," I assumed they meant at a penthouse in one of the various hotels. It was kind of an odd experience going to a place like it turned out to be, although they went to some lengths to 'tone down' the club's normal nature for us.

"Plots against our homeland, plots against our allies, plots against the Afghan and Pakistani people are taking place as we speak right here. And if this region slides backwards, if the Taliban retakes this country and al Qaeda can operate with impunity, then more American lives will be at stake. The Afghan people will lose their chance at progress and prosperity. And the world will be significantly less secure.

"And as long as I’m your Commander-in-Chief, I am not going to let that happen." -- 28 March, 2010

When they told me the BlackFive party in Vegas was going to be held at "the Penthouse Club," I assumed they meant at a penthouse in one of the various hotels.

I was pretty surprised when I heard you had gone there but I figured, "What do I know?"

I knew exactly what it was when Carrie told me. There's no way in Hell I would ever have gotten The Unit in there, even if I'd wanted to go (and I wouldn't have). I don't think it's so much that he has any great moral aversion, but I can hear him now: "No good can come from this..." :p

A good point of reference is the scandal that brought down Republican U.S. senatorial candidate Jack Ryan in 2004. Unlike the RNC scandal, that one actually involved a sex club. Unlike Steele, Ryan actually went to the club. Unlike the RNC staffers who partied at Voyeur, Ryan actually engaged in skeevy behavior while there. (His wife said he encouraged her to perform sex acts.) And, unlike anyone so far involved in the current scandal, Ryan was actually running for office.

And because the supposedly sealed records for Jack Ryan's divorce case were opened up to satisfy the media, he ended up being flushed out of the 2004 Illinois Senatorial election. Because of various other scandals in the GOP at that time (well deserved, BTW), the Illinois GOP didn't even have a chairperson at the time. Because of that the Republican candidate ended up being Alan Keyes, who was a resident of Maryland at the time. He ended up losing to a guy who prior to that had been an Illinois State Senator who had, except for one speech before the DNC 2000 national convention, been a fairly obscure politician; one Barack Obama.

Like everyone else, I haven't quite figured out why Barney Frank running a prostitution ring out of his house isn't "newsworthy" and Ryan's admittedly problematic behavior is. But in the end we have to live with the results of our decisions.

"On March 24, 2010, millions of Americans find out they may end up losing their Medicare Part D Retiree Drug Subsidy Program benefits because Obamacare taxes the subsidy that enables companies to offer the benefit cost effectively. "

This must be that "corporate welfare" thing where the government subsidizes the drug benefit and the corporations are allowed to deduct from their income the amount of the subsidy they pass through to their employees as though the corporation itself had paid the amount of the subsidy. Gotta love those corporate welfare queens whining about a benefit they shouldn't have received in the first place.

Gotta love those corporate welfare queens whining about a benefit they shouldn't have received in the first place.

Well, let's look at the background. The subsidy was a government tax incentive designed to make MediCare's Retiree Drug Program available to more retirees. The Gummint, for better or worse, decided that encouraging businesses to offer the benefit as part of their *employee benefits package* was the way to go, and in order to encourage businesses to offer the benefit *and* make it more affordable for their employees, instituted the tax incentive.

IOW, the goal was to maximize MediCare D benefits for the largest number of people at the least out-of-pocket cost to them.

HellCare turns that upside-down. Under the guise of making a facet of health care more affordable to more people, it makes it *less* affordable -- and available to fewer people -- making it, for all intents and purposes, a *rationed* system.

Those corporations filing SEC Form 8-F are doing exactly what the *law* says they must do -- file a report estimating the operational impact of any legislation that impacts their operations.

And you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Wait 'til the unions realize the full impact on their membership and discover that corporations *will* either reduce wages or workforce to try to keep themselves afloat...

IOW, the goal was to maximize MediCare D benefits for the largest number of people at the least out-of-pocket cost to them.

In other words, the government (taxpayers) footed the bill for the benefits ("same as it ever was"), and the corporations who acted merely as conduits to get the funds to the retirees (and not evey "all" retirees, but only the retirees of the corporations which received the subsidy *)received a tax benefit / deduction for something they personally did not spend. Sounds like corporate welfare to me.

* Query whether the law was drafted in such a way as to apply to only certain corporations [e.g., "corporations with x billion $$ in fossil fuel recapture deductions and whose shares are traded on y exchange and held by trusts whose original settlors were fourth generation descendents of 12 specific members of the DAR, and whose great-great grandchildren have gone to y Ivy-League school during the years 1942-1965, and are currently ..." - we've seen "complicated legislation" which, when examined closely, affects only a very small, discrete population)... as a result of corporate lobbying 'er something. I don't know the asnwer to this.

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